This is a revamp of the previous 'duplicate diagram' functionality. It now comes with a loading indicator, as well as the ability to clone a diagram across your different teams.
User now also have the ability to clone from any of the public diagrams, to serve as a starting point for creating their next database diagram 👀 - a big hint for what we're cooking up next. Keep an eye on our monthly newsletter to learn more!
It's sometimes useful to tag 'checkpoints' for your diagram as it evolves, so that you can preview the previous state of a diagram, and revert to it if required.
We've got that covered now - you can now version your database diagrams!
Just tag a new version at any time:
And now you have a list of versions
🔒 This advanced feature is restricted to the 'growth' and 'enterprise' plan (yup they have just been renamed 😉). Upgrade now if you're not on these plans to gain access.
New workflow shortcut - You can now define defaults that will be automatically applied when you create new tables and columns. We're launching 2 of them now:
These can be configured within the new diagram settings popup within the editor.
This will be the last update to wrap up an awesome year. We're very excited for 2020 and have heaps planned, with the core of it to continue work with our loyal users drive new features, with every step to towards making DrawSQL the best tool for creating, planning and documenting your database schema.
Thanks for following along the journey 🙏, could not be where we are today without you. Happy new year 2020! 🎊🎉🍻 🎆
A follow up feature from the previous update:
Back then when we envisioned for diagrams in DrawSQL to be 'DBMS agnostic', so users can create generic diagrams, and import/export them in any DBMS that they like.
While that's nice to have, however, we've learnt over time that for most apps out there switching the DBMS happens quite rarely. Making the editor be DBMS-agnostic had some limitations too - the major one that was causing headaches was that there wasn't a direct 1-1 mapping of column datatypes between the different DBMS. We tried a few different designs on the datatype selector to cater for this, but were not satisfied and felt like they were still unsatisfactory in terms of usability.
We've completed all the required changes for this Each diagram now has a single specified DBMS-type, and all functions from the column data type, import to the export formats will be automatically customized to fit the DBMS for that diagram. Hopefully the whole experience would be more streamlined for you now, regardless of which DBMS you're using.
Let us know what you think about this change 👍👎!
Few small (but long overdue) update to improve usability:
Rebuilt this component from scratch. Previously it was using browser default select element which limited style customization, and resulted in awkward sizes when the diagram is zoomed.
Previous import offered multiple options for the different sources. This made sense back then when we envisioned for diagrams in DrawSQL to be 'DBMS agnostic', so users can create generic diagrams, and import/export them in any DBMS that they like.
While that's nice to have, however, we've learnt over time that for most apps out there switching the DBMS happens quite rarely. Making the editor be DBMS-agnostic had some limitations too - the major one that was causing headaches was that there wasn't a direct 1-1 mapping of column datatypes between the different DBMS. We tried a few different designs on the datatype selector to cater for this, but were not satisfied and felt like they were still unsatisfactory in terms of usability.
We're leaning towards an overhaul so that each diagram has a distinct DBMS selected. Revamping this import wizard is the first step in that direction.
After a month long of testing🚧 and patching🔨with a few selected users during the beta access period, this is now ready for the world!
Easily kick start your db diagram documentation by importing your SQL script. The importer will parse any "CREATE TABLE" statements to create the associated tables, columns and relationships.
🙏Thanks to all users that tried out the beta and provided feedback to shape this feature.
You can now specify an index type for your columns, including:
As always, works well with the existing keyboard navigation, so if you're a pro user, you can create your whole table just from the keyboard.
Small improvement to not show the zoom buttons when diagrams are exported as image.
Fresh coat of paint 🎨 for our dashboard!
Have always been super proud of the UX we have on the diagram editor, but can't say the same for our on-boarding flow. The app had been using the out-of-the-box designs from Laravel Spark, which works great, is can be quite confusing to navigate for a new user.
Here are a few sample of the 'before' and 'after' of those improvements:
While you can change the zoom level before via scrolling on your mouse or touchpad, it can sometimes be a hassle to get the perfect fit due to varying mouse sensitivity.
That's no longer the case with these new zoom buttons, a great UX improvement suggested by the team at https://www.storytel.com/ 🙌.
